


Fragile As We Lie

by peridium



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Hell Trauma, no real plot only emotional plot, serious handwaving to get around canon, thus making this technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:59:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peridium/pseuds/peridium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragging Bela Talbot out of perdition isn't so much a decision as it is a frantic choice based on gut instinct. Her soul is bright, if fractured, and Anna yearns to do good again after the perversion of free will that immediately preceded her death.</p><p>Bela's no ordinary human, though; she's prickly and damaged and beautiful, and Anna doesn't want to leave her side. So maybe they can figure out how to navigate post-resurrection, post-Apocalypse-that-wasn't Earth together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragile As We Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh here it is! I've been wanting to write this story for literal years, so I'm terribly grateful to the Femslash Minibang this year for getting my ass in gear at last. Also grateful to [blindmadness](http://http://archiveofourown.org/users/blindmadness) for her as-ever thorough and enthusiastic betaing, _and_ last but very very much not least, to my unreasonably talented artist Lauren ([here's](http://annaharvelle.co.vu/) her Tumblr for your enjoyment) for making gorgeous art that you will find scattered throughout this fic.
> 
> I'm over on Tumblr [here](http://sunbeamdean.tumblr.com)!

If Purgatory was bad, Hell is exponentially worse.

Her limbs are weak, still freshly-made and untested, and her grace flutters uncertainly in time with her too-human pulse. She feels the fragility of this new form and tries to move carefully, but Hell is hardly a place for care. It’s a place for ferocity, for fighting her way through the muck and grime of the underworld as quickly as possible before someone notices that she’s here. An angel—technically, at least—in their midst.

She’s grateful for that particular back door, but it would have been nice to take a more direct route back to the land of the living. Especially now, tendrils of darkness shifting and murmuring around her feet and the sounds of screams echoing from an impossible distance, caverns upon caverns away.

Something grabs hold of her ankle and Anna freezes. She’d hoped with all the remains of her heart to pass through unnoticed.

“You.” It’s a hiss, scratchy and rough and, impossibly, haughty. “You’re not supposed to be here, are you?”

Anna hesitates, cocks her head to the side. Is that an English accent? An English accent with an air of unmistakable superiority, nonetheless.

“Well,” she allows, “no.” _I’m on my way out_ , she considers adding. How much information is too much? She’s rusty, strategically and in every other possible way.

Cold fingers slide up Anna’s knee toward her thigh, slick with blood and mud and whatever else she doesn’t even want to think about. It’s all metaphorical anyway. “Neither am I.”

They all say that, or so Anna has heard. Few believe themselves meant for eternal damnation. Anna has done wrong herself, after all, but she’s poised to escape and leave this sinner alone.

She pushes aside her doubts, crouches down, and sucks in a gasp.

Tangled dirty blonde hair, high cheekbones, and a sharp, sharp gaze. Saner than Anna thought possible for something—someone—who’s been down here as long as this soul has.

“Hi,” she says. The soul’s core, molten and half-ravaged, flickers. It twists and coils in on itself and it _burns_ , bright. Too bright for its surroundings.

“Hi,” the girl says. Her smile shows too many teeth. “Aren’t you going to be polite and offer me a lift?”

Anna tastes metal at the back of her throat. She needs to move, and quickly.

Going with her gut always was the root of her problems, but Anna sort of misses having problems that are under her own control, part of her own foolish human mistakes. She doesn’t see a point in stopping now. “Give me your name,” she says, “and I will.”

The girl’s teeth flash again, white in the oppressive gloom. “Bela Talbot. Charmed.”

Bela, then. Not her given name, Anna can tell, but hey, what’s in a name? Bela whose soul has jagged edges and shudders away from Anna’s touch and flares up sun-bright in the darkness of Hell as Anna bundles it into her arms, Bela’s shoulders bony and her skin smelling like cinders.

Tapping into her grace still feels slightly foreign, like it’s something she’s not allowed to touch, but Anna does it regardless. It thrums and floods her senses and she spreads her wings wide, tucks Bela’s head under her chin, and flings herself up and up and up toward the light of earth and home.

Hell isn’t the unrelenting mass of horror it used to be back when Anna was a soldier. It’s ugly, of course, and it pulls with irritation at the edges of Anna’s awareness, but it’s been tamed under Crowley’s influence, much as he would loathe to hear that. She hones in on the uneven knocking of Bela’s heart and swats the twinges of fear and hatred away like fruit flies.

Like that, they rise. Anna remembers the rhythm of flight and it comes easier with every wingbeat. Hands reach for her, but she shakes them easily and lets the green cradle of earth open itself for her and for her wayward passenger.

 

Putting Bela’s body back together takes more time than she would have liked to waste. Castiel was always better at this—reading the helixes of human DNA and recreating that code in physical form while Anna praised his work and then led him back into battle. That was where she shone.

Anna’s restless, wants to be on the move. She’s not sure what she’s running from, but the vast plains of the United States set her teeth on edge now. She wants gone, somewhere that doesn’t dog her with memories of an ordinary human life and the onslaught of history that swept it all away in a matter of days.

Picking up this girl was a commitment, though. Hastily made, sure, but Anna’s never been the kind of being to back down once she’s taken on a responsibility. So she does it, stretching ligaments and forming bones and setting the heartbeat in motion. Smooth skin and quick-zapping neurons, toenails and fingernails and eyelashes as the finishing touches.

She breathes Bela’s soul back into her, fingers curled around the strength of Bela’s new-made jaw, and—

“About _time_ ,” Bela drawls, her mouth moving against Anna’s. Her pupils are dilated and her breathing is shallow, but otherwise she might have stepped out of a corner boutique instead of the deepest pits of Hell. She arches her eyebrows, glancing down at herself. She moves her fingers and rolls her shoulders, then gives Anna a considering look. “You forgot something.”

Oh. Bela’s naked. Anna squeezes her eyes shut, snaps her fingers, and conjures up the first thing that comes to mind—her typical college uniform, jeans and a cardigan.

Bela snorts derisively. “That’ll do.”

Anna fights the impulse to roll her eyes. That would be absurd at a time like this, but already this _woman_ —anyway. “Fine. Do you need—”

Bela’s eyebrows nearly reach her hairline. “I’m legally dead. I’ve been in Hell for—well. I hardly want to tell you, or think about it. Whatever you might think I need, I probably need it.” She’s starkly unapologetic, her hands spread and her eyes narrowed. She’s beautiful by any standard, human or angelic, soul nearly in ribbons but pulsing bright, and Anna has to remember to breathe for a second.

“Food,” Anna offers. “Shelter, I don’t know. _Therapy_?”

Bela snorts out a laugh. “I thought I needed therapy before. This—well. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” Anna answers honestly. “Somewhere else. I’ve been dead for some time.”

“That would sound stranger,” Bela says, “if I hadn’t been in the same godforsaken boat.”

Anna actually laughs in turn, startled. The sound is weird, honestly, but then she remembers what it felt like when she was human. Watching stupid movies with her friends totally free of the absurd burdens of knowing the breadth of reality.

Bela’s eyebrows stay up. “Well?”

Right. Anna has to remember to breathe. Humanity is inconvenient and overwhelming and she misses enjoying it in its entirety.

“I’m guessing you don’t know where you’re going either,” she says. Bela’s lip curls into a smile. “Want to bunk together for the time being?”

“Yes.” Bela doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll pay you back sooner rather than later.” She says it with such force, such certainty, that Anna doesn’t argue, though she’ll be paying for their way with cash angelically coaxed out of ATMs rather than anything honestly earned. It’s obviously a point of pride for Bela, the ability to settle her debts. Anna can understand pride and its trappings.

They check into a motel room, because much as Anna resents the Winchesters, she can’t deny how much they taught her. God—or whoever—willing, they won’t track her down this time around.

 

Anna cleans herself up in the motel shower. She figures she gets dibs for being the one who got them both out of there. Her vessel—her _body_ —reassembled itself just fine, but Purgatory’s really nothing but a whole lot of dirt, blood, and slime. Not to even mention Hell. It feels good to scrub it all away the old-fashioned way, with hot water and scented soaps.

She should really send a thank-you card to Eremiel. Or flowers. How do you thank someone for going behind Heaven’s back like that?

Of course her paranoia was justified. Of course.

She flexes her fingers because she can, closes her eyes and listens to the rush of water in her ears. Her head is quiet, since she’s not tuning into angel radio, doesn’t want to know. They can work out their problems their own damn selves. Heaven’s taken more than enough from her—free will and humanity and simple choice.

Her vessel’s face looks too pale in the mirror. The lines of her face and mouth are drawn. She steps into the clean clothing she spins into being for herself, then stops, considers, and deliberately frays the jeans around the kneecaps. That’s better.

Bela perches at the edge of one of the beds, examining her fingernails. They’re clean, of course, but her lips are pursed anyway, her brow furrowed. She’s barefoot, her ankles slim and her hair thrown back over one shoulder.

“You can use it if you want,” Anna offers. “I brought you back clean, but I get it if you—”

Bela shrugs. “I think I’ll save my first shower for, ah…” She cocks an eyebrow and casts a practiced glance, radiating judgment, around the grubby room. “Something a little closer to my standards.”

Anna swallows an indignant retort. “Well, I don’t—”

Bela cuts her off again: “Where are we?”

Anna gapes like an idiot for a second. “Earth. I mean—the American Midwest, actually.”

A little shudder passes through Bela, and she wrinkles her nose. “Don’t tell me you have business here.”

“I don’t have business anywhere,” Anna says honestly.

That gives Bela pause, which is gratifying. “I did have business,” she says, slow. Her accent lengthens the words, dips them low. Anna notices that her voice is hoarse, though she knows for a fact that Bela is physically healthy. “But I imagine it’s all gone on without me.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Anna says. She doesn’t know what Bela’s business was, but considering where she hitched her ride from, she’s guessing it wasn’t anything an angel should be approving of. “Fresh start?”

Bela’s jaw tightens. Her eyes are hard, green with an overlay of gray. “Maybe.”

“You should sleep,” Anna says. Despite her fresh body, Bela is exhausted.

“I’d rather not.”

Anna breathes in once, quick and irritated. “You’re human.”

“And you?” Bela tilts her head artfully to one side. “Not, clearly. Human, that is.”

“The wings didn’t tip you off?”

“You found me in _Hell_ ,” Bela counters. “I was under the impression that angels generally don’t take day trips there. Unless, of course, they happen to be on an errand to fetch one of the sainted Winchester boys.”

Well, okay, then. Sounds like they have some acquaintances in common.

Anna swallows. Her grace gathers itself in nervously. “It’s a long story.”

“Tell me.” Bela’s eyes narrow and she shifts closer to Anna.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a human she picked up in the lower pits of Hell has such an unnerving stare. Anna pushes still-damp hair out of her eyes, chews on her lip. “I will,” she says, treading carefully, “over breakfast tomorrow, if you’ll try and sleep tonight. I’ll sleep too,” she adds, before Bela accuses her of being the angelic equivalent of a helicopter parent. Her own parents were that bad when she went off to college. “I could use it.”

There’s a laden silence, but Anna knows the moment Bela decides to cooperate. Her features smooth themselves out and she smiles, abruptly lovely all over again. “If you insist, but I expect the coffee to be of decent quality.”

Anna rolls her eyes, but some of the anxiety coiled at the base of her spine loosens itself. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“And then,” Bela adds, “we’ll negotiate.”

They leave the TV on as they climb under their covers, shucking jeans and bras into a pile on the floor between their beds. It hums lowly, infomercials and talk shows, and it drowns out the wide empty spaces in Anna’s head as she forces herself into sleep.

 

It’s not even close to dawn when she’s thrown into wakefulness by the nightmare that has Bela in its clutches.

Bela’s not screaming. Anna would know what to do with that. She’s not whimpering or crying or any of the things Anna used to do when she was in the hospital fighting off the voices that wouldn’t shut up.

She’s tangled in the sheets, sweating and breathing harshly and _growling_.

“Shit,” Anna says, and she kicks off her own covers and goes to Bela’s side.

Bela’s lips are drawn back, her teeth bared, her hair a mess of snarls and tangles around her head. She grabs hold of Anna’s wrist and clutches it too hard, hard enough to bruise a human, but Bela’s eyes stay shut.

“Hey! Bela—Bela.” Anna wrenches out of Bela’s grip, gathers up her grace and her resolve, and delves into just the surface of Bela’s consciousness.

_She hates this, hates it, bloody fucking hates it. She can deal with blood, honestly. She’s far from squeamish, but the sheer humiliation. The indignity of crawling in the fucking mud like an animal, fighting for her life._

_Not even life. She’s dead and forgotten and she deserved it. There’s the rub._

_It’s all so damn_ base _. This idiotic survival instinct even after death, compelling her to sink her teeth into the neck of the nearest soul and tear and tear and tear some more._

_There’s her name, her real one, the one her father would whisper in her ear, and she arches away from it, kicking out mindlessly at whatever it is that’s decided to fuck with her this time, panting hard and cursing under her breath that nothing will make her regret the deal she made, nothing, they deserved it, the bastard and his blind wife._

“Abby!” Anna tries it one more time, shaking Bela hard.

Bela’s eyes spring open, her eyelashes clumped together with wet and salt, her pupils wide. “That’s not,” she starts. She coughs, then picks up in an urgent hiss, her teeth clicking sharp around the words, “That’s not my name.”

“I’m sorry. I had to look.”

Bela curls her fist into the front of Anna’s shirt and drags her down closer. Their foreheads nearly knock together. “They gave me that name and I spit it right back out at them. With blood. It’s not mine.”

“Okay,” Anna says, and she feels guilty, like she’s cheating, but she smooths a calming whorl of grace into the back of Bela’s neck with her fingertips. Bela’s skin is tacky with sweat. “Okay. Bela. You were dreaming.”

The heaves of Bela’s chest slow. She stares at Anna, huffing musty breaths into Anna’s face. “I could have figured that much out,” she says finally. Some of her composure is returning, but Anna thinks she detects a little embarrassment. Enough to make Bela seem real, along with the mess of her hair and the flush of her cheeks.

Anna allows herself a small sigh before she steps back. “Maybe I shouldn’t have made you sleep.”

Bela’s laugh is almost like a hiccup. “You think, red?”

“But,” Anna continues, “you were exhausted. You still are.”

“Ah, and you’re as fresh as a daisy yourself, of course.”

“We’re not talking about me.”

Bela lifts her eyebrows. “Not _yet_. I went to sleep. It’s hardly my fault if, oh, decades of trauma kept me from staying that way, is it? I held up my end of that bargain.”

Anna breathes through her nose, then. They’re not children. She’s nearly ageless and Bela now has extra centuries of time under her no-doubt-fashionable belt. She’s not going to quibble over this.

“Just… try to sit up and breathe for a while, then. Please.”

She’s not going to quibble over this _much_.

Grumbling indistinctly under her breath, Bela pushes herself up into a sitting position. She rakes her hands through her hair once and then twice, then fixes Anna with an expectant look, like she’s anticipating being waited on.

“I need a glass of water,” she says after a too-long beat.

Anna thinks about arguing. Only Bela could look so regal in a sweat-stained T-shirt with spit drying on her chin. It’s the straight set of her shoulders and the way she carries her head high no matter what.

She thinks of what she saw in Bela’s head, how infinite that struggle had seemed. Struggling for what, even? A piece of dry land, a mouthful of water, a kind touch?

“Okay,” Anna says simply.

She gets Bela a glass of water, a warm damp washcloth, and a hairbrush. They seem to help; she doesn’t look inside Bela’s thoughts again and she won’t unless she really has to.

When Anna turns the TV’s volume up, she does it without the remote. Just a flick of her fingers for show. Out of her peripheral vision, she’s pretty sure she catches the ghost of a smile crossing Bela’s expression.

So she keeps doing it, changing the channels with her grace until they find reruns of _Cheers_ and Bela stops her. Sam and Diane and their unresolved sexual tension carry the two of them through to the dawn.

 

There’s nowhere within walking distance of their motel that Bela wouldn’t scoff at, and there’s no point in spending any more time in the Midwest than they have to anyway.

Bela points out that she’s from New York City and if there’s any town that knows its breakfast food, it’s New York City. So they go, Bela insistent on enacting her old beauty routine in the streaky motel mirror before they go and equally insistent that they eat before they check in on her old apartment.

“I need to fuel myself first,” she had said. “In case of disaster.”

“Okay,” Anna said, amused despite herself. She’s not willing to steal anything more expensive than drugstore makeup, so Bela had had to make do—which she did, with a handful of obligatory complaints.

Now, smooth jazz turned on low in the background and well-dressed waiters bustling around to either side of their table, Bela watches her over the rim of a gilded cup of fresh-brewed coffee. Anna never did this kind of thing in college. She and her friends might hit up local diners, waitresses with beehive hairdos and mysteriously unfriendly drawls. She remembers burnt toast and Dean Winchester’s eyes on her back as they hustled her into hiding.

This is nice, she decides. She sips her orange juice and then pours some organic half-and-half into her own coffee. It’s different. “Thank you,” she says. “You know, for picking the place.”

Bela’s lips quirk with amusement. “I could hardly let _you_ do it. You have terrible taste for—what, a celestial being?”

The prompt is obvious. Bela’s curious, Anna realizes, but her affectation of detachment won’t let her actually come out and say that.

“Well, yeah,” Anna says, “I’m an angel, technically. I know you’ve figured that much out.”

Bela’s face remains mostly blank, a shimmer of interest crossing her features like the shadow of a shark under the water. “Technically. I imagine the _technically_ is what has you sitting down to brunch with a former thief who spent more time in Hell than she spent alive on this planet.”

 _Former thief._ Anna tucks that away to ask after once this conversation is finished. “When did you die?”

Bela’s lips tighten with suspicion.

“It’s relevant,” Anna says quickly. “Promise.”

“It was 2008,” Bela says. Her voice is slipping into dreaminess, and Anna realizes that that might not have been suspicion—it might have been the shock of not remembering the details as well as she should. “April. If I recall correctly.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Anna breathes.

Bela nearly snorts with laughter. “God! Are you allowed to say that?”

Anna smiles into her coffee and pretends that she’s studying the menu. “I’m allowed to say whatever I want. Did I forget to mention I’m a fallen angel?”

Instantly, Bela’s eyes spark. “Aren’t I lucky, then.”

Anna’s turn to laugh. “Maybe not. It’s been weird. I was human for a few years in there.”

“You certainly didn’t exaggerate when you said it was a long story, did you?”

“I wish I had.” She gulps down a big swallow of coffee. “Heaven wasn’t so great. For a long time. You missed the big showdown, though, you know. The actual Apocalypse.”

Delicately sardonic, Bela glances around at the restaurant. “It didn’t take.”

“No,” Anna agrees. “I wouldn’t be here if it had. That was the failsafe I—well.”

She hates to think of it. The way Heaven’s rigidity sunk into her grace again, the irresistible compulsion to be obedient at the cost of being good and moral. The last mission, Mary Winchester fighting her with ferocity, is a blur and she doesn’t feel an urge to untangle it in her memory.

“Well,” Bela prompts.

Anna stares at the sudden blurriness of her menu. Fuck, she’s not going to cry, is she? That felt stupid and indulgent even when she was literally a human teenager. “I believed the world really would end. I called in… a favor, in case it didn’t, in case I died, which I was pretty sure I would. I was right.”

“The Apocalypse.” Bela wrinkles her nose and drops a sugar cube into her own mug. “I could have made a killing.”

It’s a confusing second before Anna recognizes the twisting sensation in her gut as what it is: exasperated fondness. “I don’t know, seems to me like you’re used to a pretty high standard of living already.”

“Was.” Bela’s spoon clicks against ceramic. “Hell was the lowest goddamned standard of living I can possibly imagine.”

Right.

A distant, smiling waitress takes their orders. Omelettes, pancakes, the kinds of human luxuries Anna missed so badly as an angel that she never let herself think of them. Bela, of course, is all smiles. White teeth and impeccable English manners. Posh, Anna thinks. That’s the word she’s been looking for.

“Apocalypse, then.” Bela leans across the table the moment the waitress has gone. “Tell me. I had dealings with the underworld. I heard rumors, from time to time. But the rumors were always the same, always as inane as ever.”

“Winchesters,” Anna says.

Bela _laughs_ , a real and easy chuckle rolling out of her throat. “Oh, the bloody Winchesters. Whatever happened to those scumbags, hm?”

“I don’t know,” Anna says, “and I don’t want to know.”

“Smart,” Bela allows. “Best to stay away from them, lucrative as their idiocy can be from time to time.”

“Lucrative,” Anna mutters. “Not the word I would use.”

After a deliberately teasing pause, Bela arranges her mouth into a shocked _O_. “You slept with one of them!”

It’s stupid, but Anna’s cheeks heat. A millennia-old creature and she’s blushing over her history with some destructive man with daddy issues coming out his ears. “Dean. It was the Apocalypse, remember.”

“I don’t blame you,” Bela says. She smiles without warning, broad, and Anna’s belly feels hot, too. “I don’t blame Dean, either. I always thought he had terrible taste, but maybe I was wrong.”

Anna bolts down more coffee, too quick, almost burning her throat. “That’s not the point.”

“So we avoid the Winchesters,” Bela says. Easy as that, she’s all business, sitting up in her artisanal wicker chair and tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I’m certainly onboard.”

“I don’t have a plan,” Anna admits. “I don’t have anything.”

“Besides unimaginable cosmic power,” Bela says dryly.

A plate of eggs clinks down in front of Anna, a welcome excuse to dip the tines of her fork into runny yolk and savor the taste. Oh, it’s been too, too long.

“And,” Bela says with apparent amusement, watching instead of starting on her own food, though she must have missed regular human food even more than Anna did, “a delightful and charming companion. Should you choose to keep her.”

“Should she choose to keep me.”

“Oh? Do I have a choice in this matter now?”

“I’m a fallen angel,” Anna says as she spears a hash brown with her fork, “not a demon. I’m not in the business of owning people. I never even took a vessel the way most of my siblings had to.”

“Fine, then you don’t own me.” Bela finally pops a small, precise bite of pancake into her mouth. “But I do owe you.”

“You said yourself you weren’t supposed to be down there,” Anna says. “I _am_ in the business of righting wrongs. Or I guess I try to be, if I have to do the angel thing.”

Eyes uncharacteristically cast down, Bela shrugs one shoulder. Her hair is one long glossy wave and it gleams as she moves. “I made a deal.”

“Yeah.” Anna tries to keep her tone gentle. “I got that much. Lots of people make deals. That’s what demons do. That’s their business.”

“Yes, but I don’t regret mine.”

Anna doesn’t know the whole deal, all the anger and resentment that drove Bela to be the way she is. But she’s seen this woman’s soul, luminous under its patina of hellfire and corruption. “We all do shitty things, okay?” She shoves aside the memory of Michael, the outlines of his beautiful true form looming over John Winchester’s shoulders. “I know you shouldn’t have been down there. I don’t pick up just anyone.”

Bela licks syrup from her lips. Her lipstick stays perfectly intact. “I’m a pragmatist at heart, Anna.” She pronounces every letter of the name. “You’ve been useful to me. And kind, charmingly enough.”

“Useful. Every girl’s dream.”

Bela actually _winks_ at her, then slides another neatly-cut stack of pancake into her mouth.

Silence slips over them, just the city noises outside and inane human conversations around them. It’s nice. It gives Anna a chance to savor her food, chewing every bite slowly. Her mom used to scold her for that, telling her not to hold people up at the dinner table.

Bela, meanwhile, is speeding up. Each bite is faster than the last, her fingers so tight around the handle of her fork and knife that her knuckles are starting to whiten.

“Hey.”

Eyes just slightly too wide, Bela looks up at her. Deer in the headlights.

“I died fighting for the wrong side,” Anna says, offering up a piece of her own crappy history in exchange for what she’s taken from Bela. “I had this moment of weakness, and then…” She snaps her fingers. “They got their hooks back in me.” She stabs her next hash brown with extra vigor.

“So you aimed to break away from something that didn’t suit you. And then you failed. And then you died,” Bela says, from eloquent to blunt in about a second flat. “And now you’re here.”

Anna washes down her next mouthful of toast with more coffee. “I used to be… kind of a big deal upstairs. I had an old friend hang onto a little bit of my grace in case, well. In case I was right.”

“Why _Hell_?” She spits the word out like it’s soap on her tongue.

Anna musters up a smile. “It was Purgatory, actually. Land of Leviathan. It’s the closest to the primordial forces of creation, so that’s where Eremiel cast the piece of my grace and where I ended up when I regenerated. Then—well, it’s not easy for an angel to get out of Purgatory. I had to take a back door. It took me through Hell.”

Bela huffs out a small exhale, the average humanity of it a little shocking to Anna. “Lucky me, mm?”

 _Someone else would’ve gotten you eventually_ , Anna wants to say, but that’s probably not true. Bela really did get lucky, or maybe fate was being kind for once. There are still millions of souls trapped in the mires of Hell’s torture and almost none of them could have done so wrong in life that they deserve such inhumanity.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Lucky you.” And there’s something to be said for her own luck, maybe. Bela’s prickly and not a little scary and inscrutable, but Anna never looked far into the future enough to make plans for what she’d do when she came back after the world failed to end. This, this unfathomable woman and her knife’s-edge smiles, this feels like purpose.

 

At least it doesn’t seem to come as a surprise when Bela finds that her former apartment is inhabited now. There’s a fresh coat of paint on the door—a cornflower blue that makes Bela’s lip curl with disdain—and a stay-at-home dad with a baby. Anna succumbs to temptation and spies invisibly for a few minutes longer than she should.

“The people there now are happy,” she says to Bela, who’s been loitering with an admirable aura of purpose on the streets of Queens.

“Wonderful,” Bela says flatly. She shoves her hands deeper into the pockets of her pea coat—where did she get that? Anna’s not going to ask.

“You’ve been gone for three years.”

“I said it was wonderful, didn’t I? Anyhow, I knew the impending date of my death. You don’t think me a fool, do you?”

“Not even close.” Anna fiddles with the sleeve of her hoodie. “I’m guessing that means you have a plan.”

Bela’s mouth curves up. It’s not what Anna would call a smile, but it does carry a hint of satisfied triumph. “There are several failsafes. Would you like to tour Manhattan?”

As an angelic sentinel, Anna had seen every corner and crevice of the Earth. As a human teenager, though, she had longed for the scope and possibility of the Big Apple.

“Yeah.” Anna feels herself grinning and tucks her hair behind her ears. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

“Ah, good.” Bela takes a half-step into the street and hails a cab; its tires squeal with its eagerness to pick up the beautiful woman. “You know,” she says to Anna as they slide across the fraying back seat, “I had a cat. She lived with me.”

Before Anna can respond, Bela smiles at the driver and turns up the volume on the taxi’s built-in television.

 

Bela takes New York City by practiced storm, heels clicking on the pavement and leaving Anna to bring up the rear. It’d be easy and convenient to use some grace to speed herself along, but that’s detectable and there are about a million hidden layers of supernatural underbelly to the island of Manhattan alone. She’s already conspicuous as a freshly-remade angel among throngs of people who could well be any brand of nonhuman being. Better safe than sorry.

Technically, it’s a tour of Manhattan’s fanciest banks. Big chandeliers, bigger lobbies, tellers who throw themselves at Bela’s feet.

Anna’s woefully out of place, and she misses the neat, trim suits she’d worn as an envesseled angel, but there’s no use risking detection just for a change of outfit. Bela helps, touching Anna’s waist and making prettily apologetic faces at anyone they pass who looks sideways at Anna’s sneakers and the holes in her jeans.

They’re somewhere near the Financial District, or so Anna thinks, when Bela turns to her with a smile, one that looks easier and less painted-on than those she’s been sporting most of the day. The sun’s rising in the sky, and Anna’s debating how dorky it would look to tie her sweatshirt around her waist. She always hated it when they’d go out and her mom would do that.

“Look,” Bela declares. She pulls a thick envelope from the inner pocket of her coat and holds it open for Anna’s inspection.

It’d be hard to mistake the green of cold, hard cash. She can’t tell how many bills, but it fits any reasonable person’s criteria for _a lot_ , and it’s real—even without actively applying her grace, she can tell.

Anna whistles lowly. There’s a cold feeling in her gut, imagining whatever Bela had to do to get all this money and to have it scattered across so many locations in the city.

The iciness scatters almost completely in the wake of Bela’s next smile, even brighter, practically downright sunny. “I worked hard, you know, back in the day.”

“Yeah,” Anna says, laughing. She ruffles the edges of the bills with her thumb, then gestures for Bela to put it all back away. “You weren’t kidding about failsafes. How many fake names was that?”

Bela taps her temple with a fingertip, a smirk lingering on her face. “I have a good memory, by the way.”

“Me too,” Anna says, “but some details do kinda get lost after millennia.”

As she’d hoped, that draws a low chuckle. “I remember what I need to remember and jettison the rest. That’s practicality.” A pause, then Bela claps her palms together lightly. “I owe you, if you’ll recall.”

“Hey, that’s not…” Truth is, Anna wants to see what Bela has up her sleeve, so she trails off on purpose.

Bela’s smirk grows knowing. “What was Heaven like, Anna? Luxurious?”

Taken aback, Anna squints at her. Cool air from the East River ruffles both their hair, unbound blonde and red over their shoulders. “I don’t know if it’s really something I can explain to someone who hasn’t been there.”

Bela rolls her eyes.

Anna relents. “It’s like… fractals, but come to life. Shining and beautiful and untouchable. It doesn’t feel real, but it’s the realest place in the universe at the exact same time.”

Bela sways closer like she’s abruptly enthralled.

“I hated it,” Anna adds.

Again, Bela’s features break into a startling smile. “Ah, that’s what I was hoping to hear.” She rubs her thumb and forefinger together and Anna can almost hear the _kaching_ , see the dollar signs popping up in her eyes like it’s one of her old Saturday morning cartoons. “Would you let me treat you, red?”

Anna hesitates. She wants to say yes without asking any questions, and that scares her a little.

Bela touches Anna’s shoulder, then the crook of her elbow, cool fingertips brushing the bare skin at the inside of Anna’s wrist. “Just a night on the town, a fancy room.” She flashes one predatory smile, some leftover criminal instinct to charm and bedazzle and flirt all at once. “I promise I’ll get us two beds.”

Ridiculously, Anna blushes. You’d think she’d be building some immunity, but Bela is overwhelming. “Okay. But I’m not doing body shots off anyone.”

Her heart squeezes stupidly as Bela grins one more time. “We’ll have to see about that, college girl.”

 

“I am not,” Anna insists, “drunk. I’m an angel.”

“Oh, are those mutually exclusive?” Bela widens her eyes, pressing a crooked smile to the rim of her champagne glass.

“Well, no,” Anna says. She pops a fresh olive into her mouth, followed by a pretzel. This is so much better than the bar food she had at the crappy on-campus dive when she was in college. “But it’s more _difficult_ to get drunk when you’re a celestial wavelength and—whatever I am. You know I really have at least four heads?”

“At least,” Bela says with clear amusement. “Are you telling me you’re not certain how many heads you have?”

Anna sighs, then beams at the waitress who refills her own glass of champagne. “It fluctuates, okay?”

“Ah, of course,” Bela says, heavy with sarcasm. “The number of your heads. It fluctuates. Naturally.”

Defensive, Anna spreads her hands, a little of her drink sloshing out over the side of her glass. “You’ve been in Hell. You’ve seen some weird things.”

That was a mistake; Anna knows it the second the words escape her mouth. Bela’s expression hardens, her eyes turning to opaque glass. “Oh, I don’t know that _weird_ is the word.” She sips her champagne, avoiding eye contact. “Grotesque. Traumatic, even.”

“Hey.” Anna feels too clumsy. With a moment’s effort, she clears the alcohol’s effects from her bloodstream so that she can aim right as she slides her hand over the back of Bela’s. Her fingers fit easily between the delicate slopes of Bela’s knuckles. “I didn’t… I’m sorry.”

Bela meets her gaze like she’s punishing Anna with the anger lurking in the vagaries of her features. “It was fucking _shite_ ,” she says, letting her accent drape around the edges of the word for emphasis, to twist the knife that’s already buried deep in Anna’s stomach. “Do you have any idea?”

“No.” There’s no use pretending otherwise. Anna pushes her glass aside, the little bowls of snacks, the heavy brass napkin ring. “I’ve been through some crap in my time, but it was different crap. You got the worst of Hell; I got the worst of Heaven.”

It seems like that helps, actually. Bela leans back in her chair and crosses her legs. “Then we must make some sort of matched set.”

Anna laughs, allowing herself a small sip of the bubbling beverage that’s been buoying their evening. Much of it’s a blur—not because she’s been too drunk, but because it’s been such a whirlwind. Bela seems determined to prove her knowledge of the city, of the upper crust, of how to act like the most civilized human possible. After centuries of mud and slime and reduction to pure instinct, Anna doesn’t blame her; she’s gone along with it, flirting with bartenders and leaning her shoulder against Bela’s before anything goes too far. She remembers the red handprint burned into Dean Winchester’s shoulder and she thinks that for the first time she understands Castiel’s sudden possessive impulse, the urge to mark a human.

The corners of Bela’s eyes crinkle, just a little. She _is_ beautiful, and Anna lets herself acknowledge the reality of that observation.

“Yeah,” Anna says once she gets that Bela is waiting for an answer. They’re at a small booth, so it’s easy to knock her sneaker-clad foot against Bela’s shiny heels under the table. “You know I’m ridiculously old, right?”

“So am I,” Bela says easily, “by human standards. I was never normal, but this is… different. I’m different even considering the way I was before I was pulled into Hell. You’re ancient; I’m old. I don’t think it so odd that we’ve found ourselves—drawn to each other.”

Yeah, all right. That’s not an unfair way to describe it, much as it makes Anna want to squirm in her freshly reupholstered leather seat. “I saw your soul,” she blurts out.

Bela’s eyebrows nearly touch her hairline. She curls two fingers around the stem of her wineglass, all business in an instant. “My soul. I still have one?”

“Oh, yes.” Anna’s breath doesn’t quite want to come. Her vessel isn’t cooperating. “Souls don’t die. They can blacken with too much evil, but yours—it’s not what I would have expected.”

“From someone as bad as me,” Bela fills in.

“No. I didn’t expect anything from you. I didn’t expect any human to have a soul like yours, that’s all.”

She has Bela’s attention again. “Like mine? Pray tell.”

“Luminous,” Anna says. She doesn’t filter herself, and that’s on purpose. “Fractured but so bright.”

Bela licks her lips. She drains the remnants of her drink. “Bright,” she echoes, slow. Almost slurred. Maybe her alcohol tolerance is finally buckling under the onslaught of festivity. “Maybe when I was a child. It’s been a very long time.”

What a lovely, frightening, complicated human Anna has landed herself with.

 

The suite Bela has booked them is too fancy, but at least Anna was braced for that. There are sweeping lace curtains, elaborately stitched throw pillows, little mints on the pillows of both beds.

“Wow,” Anna says, “I didn’t think you’d come through with that.”

Bela cocks her head to one side, slipping a dangly earring out of one ear and dropping it atop one of the armoires. How does she even keep coming up with all this clothing? Again, Anna resolves not to think about it too hard. “What, two beds? I’m not some sleaze, Anna.”

There’s something nice about the way Bela says her name, the way it comes out of her crisp accent slick like polished silver. Anna shrugs out of her hoodie and drapes it over the back of an armchair. “I didn’t know they made fancy suites like this with two beds.”

Bela smirks. “They’ll make suites with anything you want when you’ve got enough money.”

“Great.” Anna’s hesitant to actually touch one of these impeccably made beds, but it’s not like marring the silk seat cushions with her butt prints would be any better. “I think now I’m the one who owes you.”

Bela steps out of her heels, lines them up neatly next to the door. “Can you put a price on rescuing someone from Hell?”

“Point.”

There’s a sharp knock at the door; Anna just gapes, but Bela puts on a glossy smile and welcomes the hotel employee in, letting him set up the ice bucket and the fresh bottle of champagne.

“More?”

“You sobered up,” Bela points out. “Don’t think I didn’t notice. And I’ve just gotten out of approximately forever in Hell. I think I deserve to celebrate.”

“Point.” Anna toes her sneakers off and kicks them in the direction of Bela’s shoes. The room seems huge, but at least there’s Bela advancing toward her, filling a champagne flute with easy precision. If she just focuses on the space between the two of them, the reassuring imperfection of Bela’s lipstick smearing as they clink glasses and then knock back half their drinks at once, it doesn’t seem quite as intimidating.

“Stupid,” Anna murmurs around the wash of carbonation that comes with her next sip.

Bela arches an eyebrow.

“I’m an angel.”

In the slightest flicker of her eyelids, Bela’s expression manages to say _Yes, we know, now get to the point._

“I’m as old as time itself.” Anna frowns, wondering if maybe the alcohol isn’t hitting her harder than it should this go-around. “I’ve seen entire universes. And here I’m afraid to look out the window and see how big this city is.”

She’s braced for Bela to mock her, but all she gets is another loose shrug. “All right, then.” Bela crosses to one window and pulls the curtains shut. She does the same with the other, champagne glass perched between two fingers the whole time. “Now you don’t have to.”

Anna smiles. “Wasn’t that a little too… nice for you?”

“I had a reputation to maintain,” Bela says, “but I’ve been dead for years. I’m a ghost. What’s the point?”

“What’s the point of _this_?” Anna gestures to their room with her glass.

“Nostalgia. A last hurrah.”

“First hurrah,” Anna corrects her.

Bela’s laugh isn’t the kind that means she’s amused. “You told me you have no plan. That you have nothing.”

“So?” Anna tips her glass toward Bela, then. “And you’re the one who said I’ve got you. You’re not taking that back, are you?”

Bela’s breath smells like champagne and mint. She’s close; she moves like a snake sometimes, taking Anna by surprise when she leans in and their gazes are locked. “I don’t take things back unless they were lies in the first place.”

Anna feels herself raise an eyebrow.

That coaxes a laugh out of Bela, who rocks back on her bare heels and gives Anna a blessed inch or two of space to catch her breath. “And no, that wasn’t a lie. I’d accuse you of being mistrustful, but then I’d need to reintroduce myself as the pot to the kettle.”

“I was trusting when I was human,” Anna admits. She takes the last sip out of her glass, fumbles behind herself to find the windowsill to set it down. “That didn’t end so stellar.”

Thoughtful, Bela licks her lips, catching a stray sheen of champagne. Shit, Anna didn’t even know she could like women like this. Shouldn’t she have gotten an experimental college phase before Heaven swept her back into its sway? “I must have been, initially,” Bela says. “Don’t all children start out that way?”

A pause, prompting. Anna nods, then; she’s watched millions of human lives take their courses, if that’s enough to make her an authority.

“I don’t remember it, though.” Bela’s mouth quirks into a curve that almost resembles a smile. “They took from me…”

“So you took from them.” Maybe Anna should be condemning Bela. Maybe she should be horrified. But she understands now; she remembers having everything, sense of self and all, ripped cleanly from the center of her being.

“No less than they deserved.”

Bela’s chin lifts, another challenge. She’s daring Anna to disagree. Probably even looking to get into a fight, for Anna to accuse her of moral degeneracy.

“You may be right,” Anna says.

Bela steps right back into Anna’s space, eyes bright. It could be anger or it could be—

She curls her hands around Anna’s waist, two fingers through the belt loop at each hip, and kisses her with her mouth open and her teeth bared.

 _Or it could be passion_ , Anna finishes to herself before she’s swept under with the tidal wave of Bela’s hands at the small of her back, twining into her hair and tugging until their angle is better, their mouths slotting together and the lingering sweetness of their drinks giving way to the heady, ordinary taste of two people kissing.

“Tell me,” Bela murmurs, tugging at Anna’s lower lip with her teeth, her voice low, “tell me I’m a monster who went too far.”

“I don’t know.” Anna kisses her, the first one she’s initiated. She touches the sculpted arch of Bela’s cheekbone, slides fingertips down to the soft hinge of her jaw where her pulse beats so frantically you would never know how composed she is the rest of the time. “I don’t know whether you went too far. I don’t know what would have happened to you if you hadn’t killed them.”

Bela draws in a sharp breath.

“I just know your soul is vibrant and you’re probably crazy and I don’t know why, but I really _like_ you.” ¬Bemused with herself, Anna fingers the clasp of the necklace Bela picked up somewhere along their travels today. The light touch makes Bela shudder, and that makes Anna smile in turn. “I’m pretty sure I’m crazy too. I hear brainwashing does that to a girl.”

“An angel,” Bela puts in.

“Who’s also a human girl. It was this tiny blip in the span of my existence that totally changed me, you know?”

Bela’s eyelids flutter; her eyes slide shut. “Yes, I know.”

That’s enough of this. Anna presses her thumb to Bela’s throat, then to the swell of her lower lip. Most of the lipstick has come off, but her mouth is still reddened. “Do you want—?”

Bela chuckles throatily, as if she’s trying to muster up her typical shielding aura of mystery and sex appeal. It works a little, because she’s Bela Talbot and Anna’s developed some kind of huge, stupid crush on her in the space of a couple days, and because the building tension between them is bordering on tangibility, but Anna’s also an angel no matter what she’s just said, and she can feel the anxiety fluttering in Bela’s nervous system as well.

“Okay,” Anna says before Bela can give her some half-truth in answer. “Okay, later. You don’t have anywhere else to be, do you?”

She can see that it rankles Bela to answer that, but she does, a wry little “No” rolling out of the back of her throat.

“So.” Anna relishes this moment of slight control, brushing Bela’s hair back over her shoulders, tucking it behind her ears. Maybe one day Bela will let her sit and brush her hair, all those waves of perfectly styled dark blonde slipping silky under her hands.

Yeah. Huge, stupid crush sounds about right.

“So?” Bela’s already partly restored, a laugh lurking behind the way she echoes Anna.

“So,” Anna says again, firmer, “we can get to bed for now.”

Bela sighs theatrically. “This again? Haven’t we proven that I’m better off sleep-deprived than making a fool of myself while you watch?”

Oh, it feels good to have an ace up her sleeve. Anna grins, holding up the hand that’s not tucked into the crook of Bela’s elbow. “No, we’ve just proven that I need to pull out the big guns. I can help you sleep, and I can make sure you don’t have nightmares.”

Bela squints, looking for all the world like one of Anna’s siblings thrown into a vessel for the first time in centuries. “I prefer not to take drugs of unknown origin.”

“No drugs.” Anna wriggles her fingers and taps Bela’s forehead in demonstration. “You said it yourself. I’m an angel.”

There: Bela’s features relax into comprehension. “Magic.”

“Sort of. Not really, but close enough.”

Bela shrugs. “I know about magic. I used to—well, you know.”

“Some of it. I tried not to pry too deeply.”

There’s a silence, nearly awkward, as Bela eyes Anna’s hand like she’s expecting sparks to fly out of her fingers at any moment. Then—maybe more of a miracle than half the things Anna’s seen with that name—she nods and bows her head.

 

There were two beds, Anna realizes, her first thought as her consciousness drags its way back to the surface of her mind.

Once she had Bela tucked in, Anna slipped in beside her and allowed herself to fall into the comfort of sleep as well. She’d left a portion of her grace attuned to Bela’s soul in case of distress, to calm her and to scare off any encroaching nightmares.

They’d slept, and slept some more. Angelic intuition left some awareness of the time ticking at the edges of Anna’s awareness, but she’d given herself permission to ignore it.

Now she’s blinking fuzzily at the ceiling, at the barest crack of light showing around the hotel’s expensive blackout curtains.

There’s the second bed—existing sort of accusatorily out of her peripheral vision, the sheets and covers totally untouched. And there’s Bela, slow to wake, the remnants of her makeup smeared and her hair fanned out against the pillow. A few strands are wrapped around Anna’s wrist, so she extricates them with care.

Bela grunts, inelegant and human, and rolls a couple inches closer to Anna. They’re a respectable distance apart, but Anna can feel the warmth of Bela’s body. The body she remade, she allows herself to think, and for a second, fondness and pride and protectiveness tightening all together in the pit of her stomach. Again, she feels a pang of sympathy for Castiel.

“How long,” Bela says, sleep-slurred and with her eyes still closed, “did I sleep?”

 _Huge_ stupid crush. Anna bats aside the temptation to touch Bela’s face. “Almost eleven hours. We’re coming up on noon.”

Bela scowls without opening her eyes. It’s not pretty, and Anna likes that, likes getting to see this part of Bela. She’s glad she raised a human without a particular destiny, glad that they might get a chance to hack out some kind of purpose with each other.

“Late to bed, late to rise,” Bela mutters.

“That’s not how that proverb goes.” Anna smiles, watching Bela stretch, yawn, push her hair out of her face with both hands. “Anyway, trust me, you needed it. I’m monitoring your vital signs.”

Bela pulls a delicately disgusted face. “I didn’t need to know that.”

“You feel better, don’t you?”

“Only via your blatant and unconscionable cheating.” The words lack heat, any lingering accusation swallowed by one last yawn.

Anna leans back on her elbows, sinking down a few inches into the pillows. They’re ridiculously soft, so at least Bela got what she paid for with this suite. “I slept too, if that makes you feel any better. Almost as much as you did.”

She can actually see Bela bite back the words _but you’re an angel_ , and she grins. “I wanted to, okay? Sleep feels good.”

“Uninterrupted sleep, absolutely.” Bela props herself up on one elbow in turn, her eyelids heavy as she watches Anna. There’s a little eyeliner still in place around the sleepy green-gray of her eyes. “I’ve got many skills, but the maintenance of a regular sleep schedule’s never been one of them. Either four hours or twelve, typically.”

“Then this wasn’t even weird for you.” Anna hesitates, expends a little grace to clean her teeth without getting out of bed. Totally cheating, especially with Bela’s breath musty barely a foot away from her, but she’s not above some human vanity. She leans in, then stops.

Bela smirks, her demeanor shifting just like that. Eyes dark, tongue swiping out to wet her lips. 

“So.” Anna breathes out. She considers the clean line of Bela’s collarbone as it disappears beneath the fabric of the _I Heart NY_ shirt she’d bought just for sleeping. “Are we still, um?”

Well, at least Bela’s laugh is lovely, throaty and musical. “We are still _um_ , I assure you.”

Anna wrinkles her nose, leaning closer still until the tips of their noses nearly touch. There are a few faint freckles she’d never have known to look for if she hadn’t stitched this skin back together from the blueprint of Bela’s soul.

“I haven’t,” Bela starts, a small flicker of self-consciousness crossing her expression, and that’s it, that small moment of human vulnerability that makes her irresistible to Anna in that one quiet late-morning moment.

She kisses Bela, sober and rested and in complete possession of her faculties, her grace permeating the air around them and sensing the shudder of shock that goes through Bela’s system, the pulse of fear and excitement and even affection.

Bela laughs into her mouth, only the slightest interruption before she kisses Anna right back, morning breath and chapped lips and all. It’s just presses of their lips, the barest lingering sweetness at the corners of their mouths, careful—

That’s when Bela shifts gears, sudden and sharp like everything else about her. She pushes herself up until she’s looming over Anna, ducks back down with Anna’s face in her warm, smooth hands and kisses her harder, open-mouthed and humid and improbably good.

Anna makes some kind of helpless noise. Bela is two and a half steps ahead of her, her fingernails brushing Anna’s jugular and her palm steady at the back of Anna’s neck.

There are nerves firing all across Anna’s body; it’s hers, it’s always been hers, and she inhabits it all the way down to her littlest toes right now—parts of her waking up, stirring from the slumber that apocalypse and war and reprogramming forced upon her. _Oh, yeah,_ something laughs in the back of her mind as Bela sucks at the spot under her ear and she gasps, _yeah, remember when you used to like sex? A lot? Remember when you ripped out your grace partly because you wanted the freedom to like it as much as you did?_

With renewed purpose, she curls her fingers up under the hem of Bela’s T-shirt.

Bela freezes, breath trapped in the space between their mouths where they’re almost kissing again.

Anna clears her throat, the sound weirdly loud in the abrupt silence with all the wet noises of their kissing vanished. “Is that not—?”

Bela’s eyes are just too wide. She clenches her jaw, her throat visibly working. “I… ah.” She glances at some spot over Anna’s shoulder. “Hell was—well, it was hellish.” There’s the briefest specter of a smirk. “I find myself pretty damn well compelled to touch you, but…”

“Oh.” Anna licks her lips, tasting the faintest trace of Bela’s lipstick. “I.” She ducks her head a little, not embarrassed so much as taken aback.

Before Anna can make an idiot of herself, Bela cuts in, two fingertips dipping below the collar of Anna’s shirt. “Think of it as an exercise in delayed gratification, red.”

“For _you_ , maybe.”

“Oh, no.” Bela licks her lips in obvious imitation of Anna a moment before, her gaze catching on the dip of shadow between Anna’s breasts. “This is more than gratification enough for me.”

And with that, Bela is on her like a sudden downpour, heavy and overwhelming and cathartic. Her hands are clever, the hands of a thief, plucking Anna’s shirt off and over her head, sliding her panties down her thighs until they’ve disappeared over the edge of the bed where the world no longer seems to exist. She sucks Anna’s nipples into her mouth, one by one, small scrapes of her teeth that make Anna suck in harsh breaths and arch her back. All these brief touches, fresh-made skin against her own fresh-made skin, leave this trail of goosebumps and heat in their wake, like she’s coming back alive after all her limbs have been asleep for hours. Days.

Bela’s mouth sucks a slow, luxurious bruise into the pale skin of Anna’s inner thigh. It’s all happened so quickly, Anna’s heart thumping just under the surface of her chest, but she’s wet and wanting and she lets her head fall back against the pillows in invitation, one hand clutching the sheets and the other resting lightly, just so, at the top of Bela’s head.

Time slows for a second. Bela tips her chin up, presses a smiling kiss to the inside of Anna’s wrist. They’ve been acquainted for hardly two days, but Anna has seen Bela’s soul; Bela has seen Anna’s wings; there’s something good and promising about the brightness in Bela’s eyes.

She’s sure as hell got spunk. That’s proven when she pushes Anna’s thighs apart with firm hands and drags her tongue in a broad, fearless stripe all up where Anna’s open and waiting, perfect teasing friction against her clit. Anna whines, startled and already wanting more, tangling her fingers in the dark gold of Bela’s hair.

Bela hums with apparent satisfaction and Anna squirms. Shit, it’s been so fucking long since someone did this to her. Her hands still itch, distantly, with the urge to feel Bela’s skin, but there’ll be time for that. She promises herself that much and then succumbs to the onslaught of Bela’s mouth, her inquisitive tongue. The sight of Bela’s head buried between her thighs, demanding and giving at the same exact time. That clever, quick tongue curling its way inside her just long enough to make her moan and to coax her legs farther apart.

With that, like it’s a cue, Bela pushes two fingers inside her. Slim, elegant, even cleverer than her tongue. Anna’s spine bows. She pushes up, grinds against the lovely planes of Bela’s face. Maybe she’ll feel guilty and disrespectful later but for now it feels nothing but _good_ , sweetly elusive physical goodness that’s tethering her grace to her body so for the first time since she came back she feels good, whole, not splintered into the various parts of herself that don’t quite fit all the way together. Bela doesn’t let up, no matter how hard she bucks and no matter how quick and ragged her breathing gets.

Whimpering, her fingers too tight around the back of Bela’s skull, Anna comes.

Bela stays throughout, fingers curled tight against the inside of her where it’s warm and throbbing. Anna pants, completely unladylike and glad for it.

“Ah,” Bela murmurs, kissing just above where her clit is practically still twitching with aftershocks, “that wasn’t so bad, mm?”

“No,” Anna manages to say through the slowing waves of pleasure that are dragging her into languor, “no, it was fucking great.”

Bela grins, all teeth. Maybe hearing Anna swear hits some of her buttons; Anna vows to do it more often. “I do prioritize quality over quantity,” she says. Her mouth is shiny, her chin and nose, and she slithers up to kiss Anna nonetheless.

Anna takes it, the heady taste of herself rich on Bela’s tongue. She licks into Bela’s mouth, boneless and eager. She shifts her thigh when she feels Bela shuddering and rolling her hips down against her, the dampness through Bela’s panties.

“Hey,” she says, gentling their kissing, “hey, c’mon.”

As easy as that, Bela’s shaking, panting hot and heavy into her ear. “Oh,” she gasps. Slick fingers dig hard into the meat of Anna’s thigh, fingernails pressing little crescents of pain into her skin.

Now Anna’s the one grinning, stroking sweat-damp locks of hair back from Bela’s forehead. “That seemed a little like gratification to me.”

Bela sighs, heavy and exasperated. As if Anna’s tried her patience beyond all measure. “Sex is ridiculous, Anna.”

“I know, Bela.” Anna skims the palm of her hand down the warm arc of Bela’s vertebrae anyway.

“ _That_ ,” Bela says, deliberate, “is my name. Please don’t wear it out.”

“Bela,” Anna says again, then, just to spite her. “Bela, Bela—”

Bela sighs one more time, then kisses her.

 

They check out a few hours later, clean and presentable. Bela offered to pay for another night, but Anna could sense her restlessness in the way her eyes darted all around the room, the number of times she smoothed down the front of her blouse.

“We’re not staying here, are we?” Anna asks as they linger by the massive granite front desk, awaiting the return of one of Bela’s falsified credit cards, freshly minted off one of her many banks. She’s more like the Winchesters than Anna’s ever planning to tell her.

“Here?” Bela’s head tilts and her brows lift.

Bela’s indicating the hotel and maybe the city, but that’s not what Anna means. She had an American childhood, an American college experience; she died as a small pawn in what felt like a pointlessly American apocalypse. This country is too big, too dusty and divided and insular and everything that reminds her of the flaws in Heaven that got her killed the first time around. She’s not gonna stick around for a second death unless it’s one she orchestrates herself.

“How long since you went home?” Anna asks.

Bela’s jaw tightens, and she accepts her card back wordlessly, tucking it into a slim leather wallet. It seems she excels at effortlessly collecting small luxuries, the trappings of a life cut too short. “Counting Hell years or not?”

Okay, never mind. They step aside, letting the next couple take their turn with the desk agent. “You know what I’m trying to ask.”

Rather than answering right away, Bela tucks her hand into the crook of Anna’s elbow and steers the two of them outside. It’s gray and overcast outside, throngs of New Yorkers rushing past with their heads down and their hands deep in their pockets or clutching their cell phones.

Bela’s quiet, breathing in slow and deep. She’s perfectly coiffed, her makeup impeccable, but there’s a touch of wildness in her eyes, their brightness. Anna might never know whether that was there before Hell, but she suspects it was—Hell may have brought it out again, but Bela is a feral, predatory kind of creature. It’s an honor that she’s sticking close to Anna’s side, an honor Anna’s well aware of.

“You know,” Anna says, “the cat’s okay.” Originally, she planned to sit on that information, but what for? She’s not interested in manipulating Bela or acting like they’re enemies. All her cards should be on the table. “I checked on her. Her people now—you’d think they were hippies, but they love her. They’re taking good care of her. I mean, she’s getting a little fat, but…” And she waits, watching Bela’s throat shift as she breathes.

“Yes,” Bela says. Crisp, decisive. She grants Anna a smile, and like that, she’s playing at being a tame, civilized person again.

Anna breaks into an answering grin. There’s a second where she has to struggle not to kiss Bela in the street like they’re—actually, maybe they are together. Huh. “Airplane or wings?”

Bela’s frighteningly good at rolling her eyes with all the disdain of a teenager. “Red, _please_. Wings.”

Her grace starting to prickle in her palms with renewed liveliness, Anna rolls her shoulders. “Hang on,” she says, “it could be a bumpy ride.”

 

The last time Anna saw Europe, it was from a distance. The people moved, but she didn’t recognize them as individual souls—couldn’t, not from all the way up and away in Heaven.

This time, she’s on a train to Prague with Bela. The people bustle around them, chattering in English and French and Czech. Anna does most of the talking for them, but Bela picks up words fast. Anna might miss the slyly impressed looks Bela slings her way when she’s successfully negotiated something in another language, though.

“Check,” Bela says, crossing and re-crossing her legs. Her feet are bare, freed of their ridiculous heels.

Anna scowls down at their magnetic chessboard. “You’re cheating.”

Bela widens her eyes, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “What, you’re not?”

“Angel,” Anna reminds her.

“Thief,” Bela answers with ease, nudging Anna’s hip with her ankle.

“Oh, damn. Now I have to bring you to justice.”

Unruffled, Bela taps her fingernails against the chessboard. “Speaking of, you know, there’s a lovely Titian in Prague.” Her lips curl into a wistful smile. “You can’t tell me you won’t want to start a collection one day.”

Anna huffs a long-suffering breath of irritation. “Not of _stolen_ art, you degenerate.”

Bela shrugs elegantly and crosses her arms, fixing Anna with the stare that means she’s not buying all the stalling. “You’ll come around.”

Maybe. Maybe not. Anna’s looking forward to letting Bela try and persuade her.


End file.
